GreyGrey Designs

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

{My Parties} Brett's Planes, Trains, and Automobiles 2nd Birthday Party

All Aboard!

It's a Planes, Trains, and Automobile Party!

This party was so fun for an adorable little 2 year old sweetie, who loves trains! You may remember Brett from his first birthday last year, the Jungle Safari party.

Well, now Brett is so big and just precious and party-mommy Jennifer thought that a Planes, Trains, and Automobiles party would be perfect for him!

She really wanted to do a non-traditional color palette for this theme and I loved that idea, so when I found this fabric by Robert Kaufman, "Ready, Set, Go!", I knew it was the perfect choice. He has three versions; a car, a train, and a plane!

I started off by contacting Amanda with Shindig Parties To Go. I literally could talk all day about how amazing Amanda is. She is incredibly talented, and incredibly gracious and sweet as well.
She took my fabric swatch and designed an entirely new printable collection based upon it!

And, when I say "collection," I mean A HUGE COLLECTION.

It is available in her shop right now!

So, if you like this party, then go and get those printables!

There are TONS of great pieces that you can use a variety of ways!

For the front door, I always like to make some sort of sign or wreath to greet guests.

So, using the printable collection, I made this hanging piece out of orange craft foam. I used some cardboard pieces behind the main sign to make it pop out from the background.

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I wanted the backdrop to be a literal sky. So, using this blue sky fabric from Hobby Lobby, I added some clouds made from cardboard and pillow batting--a super easy project for very little money.

And, I strung the banner from the back of the airplane to suggest the airplanes that fly messages through the sky.

I made this enormous cupcake stand out of hatboxes and small cardboard/chipboard pieces. I spray painted some parts and used Shindig's coordinating papers for the rest.

The AMAZING cupcake toppers were done by Brittany at Edible Details. Her level of skill is BEYOND. Every one of them arrived without even one broken and they were truly a perfect touch for the party.

She is so talented and I cannot believe how perfectly she nailed Amanda's designs. I honestly do not know how fondant designers do it! Brittany is just incredible.

Since this party was in the morning, Jennifer and I decided to do a mix of brunch-type foods and sweets.

Of course, there had to be donettes, right? Or, "car tires."

And bagels, or "steering wheels."

And, since Brett loves fruit, we did some "Stoplight Skewers" or grapes, pineapple, and strawberry. You could also do honeydew melon as well!

We also did some "cloud dip" which was marshmallow fluff and graham crackers.

And Suckers By Steph did these adorable chocolate train pops for us, in the colors of the party. Stephanie is a DREAM to work with and her lollipops are always perfect and delicious. Thank you Stephanie, for doing these custom for me!

And, to bring in the trains, we did "Lumps of Coal," which were simply rice krispie treats with black food coloring. They were a fun touch, especially for kids! We joked that you would certainly be able to tell who had one, just by the color of their mouth!

Here is party mommy Jennifer and Mr. Brett in his cute-as-a-button train conductor overalls!

For favors, Jennifer liked the idea of train whistles and conductor hats, and those are always an easy find on Oriental Trading's website.

I tied them with a favor card from Shindig and some cute ribbon to match the theme.

For the beverage station, or "Fueling Station," I used the train version of the fabric and some small lanterns that I found at Hobby Lobby. They have these in 6 colors!

Amanda did a whole bunch of road signs for me and I simply hot glued them to dowels that I painted black and then stuck them into foam covered in grass-print scrapbook paper. The artificial grass is from Hobby Lobby and they have it out right now for Easter! I have used mine at tons of parties! It comes in really handy for a variety of themes!

And the kids didn't get this joke, but we made the drink lime green and called it Antifreeze!

Hope you liked this new take on the Planes, Trains, and Automobiles theme. No John Candy or Steve Martin at this party though. Bummer.

Happy 2nd Birthday Brett!

Vendors:

Chocolate Lollipops: Suckers by Steph

Printables and Paper Products: Shindig Parties

Fondant Toppers: Edible Details

Train Whistles and Conductor Hats: Oriental Trading

Fabrics: Carrie's Fabrics

Cupcakes: Mad Lily Cakery

Friday, February 3, 2012

{My Parties} Leap Year Party Styled Shoot

I have always thought it would be really awesome to have a birthday on Leap Year! A birthday only every 4 years? Well, that appeals to some people's vanity! But, when you're a kid, it would probably be a bummer!

My oldest could have been a leap year baby. He was born in 2008, and he made it to March 13th, but it was definitely a possibility! And, here were are, 4 years later and it's another leap year!

So, with that in mind, I styled this Leap Year Party shoot for Baby Lifestyles February/March issue.

I loved working with Lauren, the editor or Baby Lifestyles, she is super witty and fun and really understood my sense of humor, which I always appreciate. I was honored to put together this fun shoot, inspired by Leap Year babies, and what else? Frogs.

Because I am a mom to boys, who love slimy and gross things, I thought a frog party would be right up their alley. I asked the lovely Paulaat Frog Prince Paperie to help me with the printables. Who better, right? She was so gracious in modifying one of her existing collections to fit my party theme.

I started with a monochromatic green color palette. I used these oversized flowers as a backdrop because they reminded me of lilypads. In addition, I found these green votives that also had the same look. For the front of the table, I simple used chipboard letters and some glittered scrapbook letters to spell the word “leap.”

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I love the idea of having all green food and drink and I knew boys would love that too. Since my son is abig fan of pistachios, I knew I had to incoporate that somehow. So, pistachio pudding, or “Lilypad Pudding” was the perfect fit! I garnished the pudding with these small frog candy melts that I made using a mold from Wilton

Another addition to the dessert table was chocolate and mint marshmallows. I found this great miniature dessert fork display at Hobby Lobby and knew it would be cute for kids. Kids love things that are individualized. It makes them feel special! I wrapped each fork with a pipe cleaner to give it an little extra color. Green olives would also be a cute touch on these little forks. I also added some Coconut M&Ms to the table, calling them “Frog Eggs.”

Paula made these great drink wraps for me, which I used with green sparkling juice. I added some glittery scrapbbook paper behind them to make them look extra special.

To send the boys home with something fun, the favors were frog slap bracelets that I found at the dollar spot at Target. Boys love slap bracelets, so this was really serendpitous. I tied each one with a favor tag from Frog Prince Paperie.

Hope this inspires you to have a party for the holiday that you can only celebrate once every four years!

Happy Leap Year!

Vendors:

Printables: Frog Prince Paperie
Small plastic cups and fork display: Hobby Lobby

Sunday, January 8, 2012

{My Parties} Emma Kate's Ocean 1st Birthday

This weekend, I had the pleasure of doing an old friend's sweet little girl's very 1st birthday party. I was so excited to get to do a little girl's party! It seems like I always do boy parties, which I love, but it's a nice change of pace to do a pretty girl's party!

Party Mommy Kristin wanted an Ocean themed party for little Emma Kate. I loved this idea, especially since it is the middle of January! How fun to escape from gloomy January to the warm ocean!

I worked with the supercalifragilisticexpialodocious Piggy Bank Parties to create the printables for this party, starting off with the gorgeous invitation.

Do and J really "got" my vision for the party and created the most ethereal and stunningly beautiful graphics for this line (which will be available in their shop!).

I wanted to focus on a general ocean feel without mermaids or anything like that. Just the simple beauty of the ocean, the fish, and the coral. So, it was only natural that the color scheme was sand, aqua, and coral.

My inspiration for the table was for the backdrop to be the ocean, and for the table to be the beach, like in the foreground of a picture.

I achieved the look of the background by pinning yards of crepe fabric (not like crepe paper) onto points. Then, on the lower level, I used a blue glittered mesh that would typically be used for formal dresses. This gave it a nice glittery, girly feeling.

The seashell letters are made from wooden letters at Michael's with real shells glued onto them. I used Gorilla Glue to make sure that really adhered.

The "Bubbles" are clearance Christnas ornaments. I took the silver tops off them and left the wire toggle inside and threaded them with clear craft lacing to give them the illusion of floating.

Kristin wanted to do cupcakes for the guests, but of course Emma Kate had to have a smash cake. Kristin actually made this cake and the cupcakes! She's pretty great with a pastry bag! I love this touch because it shows the love that she put into the party.

The fabulous fondant topper for the cake and the cupcakes were by the brilliant Lynlee's Petite Cakes. I have wanted to work with Lynlee forever and she really knocked it out of the park for me. I told her that I wanted some kind of "plaque" sticking out of the top of the smash cake and she came up with this adorable design! How much do you love that she used starfish as the A??

Look at how gorgeous these toppers are!!

I cannot get over it. They were my very favorite part of the party!

I cannot say enough nice words about Lynlee. She is amazing in more ways than one!

For display, I used hat boxes from Hobby Lobby. I spray painted the aqua color to match the theme and the bottoms of the smaller ones are covered with "sand" scrapbook paper. I used seashell necklaces to embellish them a little more.

And, you know you want to see more of those cupcake toppers.

Another sweet that we did was the white chocolate lollipops. I called them "Lowtide Lollipops." These were done for me by Suckers by Steph. You can find her on Etsy. I love these and they would make great favors as well!

Don't you love those printables with that beautiful goldfish?

One of my all-time favorite vendors to use is Whimsy Cookie Co. Laurie is here in Memphis and she always makes me the most beautiful, perfect cookies! And, they taste great!

The lollis and the sugar cookies are both held up with styrofoam covered in "sand" scrapbook paper. Then, I covered that with some edible sand using brown and white sugar mixed together!

For the savory food, we did a few dips and small bites. This was the "Crabby Dip"...

...we also had "Clamwiches."

...and "Seaweed Spinach Dip."

...and Conch Shell Pizza Cups

I always like to try to give the flatware a little zhuzhing, so I wrapped the napkins around the forks and secured them with some glittery pipe cleaners for fun.

I used 9 yards of muslin for my tablecloth. It has just the right color for sand and it's really inexpensive! I scattered shells around the table, along with some sea cucumbers to make it looked like these things washed up on the beach.

Emma Kate's high chair was so fun to make into a seashell! I cut this form out of foam and them folded and pinned this coral fabric to it. Then, I covered the rest of the chair in some leftover cream fabric that I had. The beautiful banner by Piggy Bank Parties made a great backdrop for pictures.

I had to show you some close-ups of this banner. The detail is so gorgeous. The most stunning part was that the ocean floor was continuous on it. Every piece had a different seascape. So, if you put all the pieces in a big row, it looked like one continuous ocean seascape. Beautiful!

The pictures do not do it justice.

EK didn't really like her birthday hat, but I wanted to show you a picture of it. I made this with some felt, some sticky foam, and some pompoms. These are so easy, anyone can make them!

The birthday girl! So is so precious!

For the beverage and favor area, I did a garland of pictures of EK from each month. In between each picture is one of the small party printables from the collection.

The favors were bubbles! I wanted to "ocean" up this frame, so I painted it aqua and them glued seashells all over it.

The bubble containers were small jars from Michael's that I glued shells onto. Each one was wrapped in ribbon and had a homemade wand with it. I got this idea from the fabulous Gwynn Wasson, you can see her version here.